In 1608 El Greco contracted to paint three altarpieces for the church of the Hospital Tavera (also called Hospital de San Juan Bautista or Hospital de Afuera). Located just outside the walls of Toledo, the hospital was founded in 1541 by Cardinal Juan Tavera (1472-1545), who is buried in the church. Of this project for the altarpieces, three pictures survive: an Annunciation (Colección Santander Central Hispano, Madrid, the upper portion showing a choir of angels has been cut and is in the National Gallery, Athens), a Baptism (installed on a side altar in the church), and The Opening of the Fifth Seal (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

This project was El Greco's last large-scale undertaking, and he did not live to complete it: in the 1614 inventory we find its components described as 'the paintings destined for the hospital begun' followed by 'the wood frames, not sculpted, for the lateral altarpieces', and 'the altarpiece for the high altar without its columns, tympana and sculptures'. El Greco's son Jorge Manuel continued to work on the altarpieces and by 1621 the frames of the lateral ones had been prepared for gilding and that for the high altarpiece had been finished. Jorge had completed The Baptism, which was for the high altar, but not the paintings for the lateral altars, which remained only sketched in. Eventually, Jorge Manuel brought The Annunciation to completion, thereby spoiling what his father had begun, just as he had spoiled the principal figures of The Baptism. Fortunately, The Opening of the Fifth Seal remained as El Greco had left it.